Welding
by Babbity99
Summary: The story of the Heroes of Olympus but with a few extra surprises and my own character. Oh and Leo is definitely going to be a love interest here...XD Read and review! Rated T just in case!
1. Chapter 1

**Ok,so this is my first try at a story on here! Its about ,well, just look at the title!**

**Note-Clavus is Latin for rivet,yup.**

**I don't own any of the characters except for Twill! Rick Riordan owns the HOO series not me!**

**Please review! It would mean a TON to me if you did and please tell me if I made any mistakes or if you have any suggestions/questions! Thanks and I hope you like it!**

I stepped onto the deck, surveying the boat-ship-thing. The Argo II. And some dude just built this? As far as I knew he had only the help of a tool belt, a couple other Hephaestus offspring and Annabeth, from Athena's cabin. Man, I had seen some impressive things in my time at Camp Half-Blood, but this was just…wow. And to think, that I, lowly Twill Clavus of Hephaestus, the semi-newbie in cabin nine, was going to be a part of its crew…that was another thing altogether. I had definitely been lucky to have had the odd knowledge off steampunk mechanics that just barely qualified me to help out onboard. _Yup, definitely lucky. But enough gaping on deck_. I should get below and acquaint myself with the ships layout. I picked up my duffel and headed for the stairs.

I felt like I was going to be sick. I had felt that way ever since take off. I supposed it was probably due to the fact that I have never been on a plane or any other aircraft before but another teensy tiny part off it was maybe due to his eyes. I had put my stuff away in a cabin below deck (There were at least ten. What was this guy thinking? Were they going to stop and pick up a few random strangers along the way?), avoided the 'Gym Satyr' screaming at everybody and finally found myself in the engine room. I figured I would probably need a crash course in how to operate all that stuff otherwise… the ship would crash. That was when Admiral Leo made the announcement for takeoff. I had rushed up to the deck, not wanting to miss getting a bird's eye view of Camp Half-Blood. I had started to walk across deck when I heard the dragon roar and the ship lurched (apparently this was normal, as Leo still had a few teeny tiny kinks to work out with liftoff)and I was spilled right into him.

"Oof! Get off me will ya?"

"Sorry, I didn't mean t-oh…" I stammered. His eyes were a chocolate brown with a mischievous light in them. He looked sort of like an elf, with pointed ears and a toothy grin. I tore my eyes from his face and quickly stood up, silently scolding myself. This was not the time.

"Who are you anyways?" he asked brushing himself off and standing.

"She's Twill Clavus. She will be your engineer." Annabeth says, stepping forward.

"Can't you just help me out?"

"I won't be around all the time and I don't know half as much about operating machinery like this as she does. It would be illogical to go without a backup pilot and even if we don't need her mechanical expertise she can still hold her own in a fight if it comes to that."

"Fine, fine. Jeez, Annabeth, a simple no will do next time" He replied. I clear my throat to get their attention again. It makes me feel uncomfortable when people talk about me like I'm not there. They turn back to me.

"Right. I'm Leo. You can call me Admiral or Supreme Commander Leo if you like."

"His official title is actually Repair Boy. "says a new voice. A slightly familiar face walks on deck. "Piper McLean at your service."

"Yeah, I've seen you around camp. Aphrodite right?" I asked. Piper looks slightly annoyed and embarrassed.

"Er Yeah Aphrodite. And this clown is Jason, son of Zeus or Jupiter; however you want to look at it."

"Huh? Sorry I was thinking. Did you call?" I finally notice the guy standing by the railing. Apparently he's the clown Piper is talking about. Piper rolled her eyes and smiled, walking over to stand by him. Everything was back to business and I turned and walked to the railing facing Camp. It was an amazing site. I could just barely make out the people down below, going about their business. I thought back to when I had first found the Camp…

_It had been at least a year ago. She had been wandering the streets for some time now, managing to balance work and school just barely. She was alone and it was her birthday. _Some sweet sixteen _she had thought. Fall Break had begun so she had nothing to do after her shift at the coffee shop ended so she would scrounge together enough cash for a cab or simply walk to the library across town, where she would spend as long as she could curled up with a book and a Danish or two from the coffee shop. It had been one of those evenings when a thunderstorm hit. She guessed the Librarian hadn't realized that she was still inside because later when Twill had tried the door it was locked on both the inside and out. Twill could easily pick the lock but then she wouldn't be able to relock it and it would be much nicer to just sit here and wait till morning. She had gone back to her corner but it hadn't been long when she heard a huge CRASH! She had jumped up, scared and not knowing what was happening. She grabbed the closest thing she could find(a small stool)and headed to investigate. She treaded slowly and quietly until she got to where the noise came from. There ,the wall had a gaping hole in it, and in the middle was a…_


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi guys! Im back and really encouraged by the views I got! Somebody in Singapore checked out my story? Lol but sadly no reviews and it would mean ****soooo ****much to me if you would ****PLEASE**** review. Please?**_**Anyway heres chapter two and I hope you all like it!**_

_Twill stared through the gaping hole in the library wall and gasped. It was a boy. Well, it was sort of like a boy. He was surrounded by storm clouds and lightning danced around him, scorching the ground. He grinned evilly and thunder boomed. The stepping stool made a dull thud as it fell from Twill's hand and hit the floor. The boy cackled and Twill turned heel, running past the rows of bookshelves. Her heart pounded. She could see flashes of light in the corner of her eyes and rain pounded at her back as the boy followed her. She turned a corner, hoping to shake him and slipped trying to stop herself. There before her was another one, this time in the form of a horse. It reared and let out a thunderous whinny, before pounding the ground with its hooves. Twill scuttled backwards on her hands. Her face was rain-soaked and her eyesight was getting blurry. She finally found her footing and scrambled around the bookshelf on wet carpet. As she ran she tried to wipe her eyes with the back of her arm but it was just as wet as her face. Suddenly, something hit her stomach and sent her sprawling across the floor. The corner of a chair. She crawled into a small corner between a couch and the chair, a table against her back. She sat as still as a rock, trying to quiet her breathing and hoping the boy and the horse didn't find her. After a few nerve-racking moments, Twill slowly peered out of her corner. There wasn't a single raindrop in sight and the library was quiet once more. As quietly as she could she stood up and walked away from the hiding place. Nothing. She was just beginning to relax when the icy hand touched her shoulder. Twill whirled around to find the storm-boy smirking at her. She wrenched her shoulder from his dripping grip and backed away. Her back smacked into a bookshelf and the boy walked-no, glided- towards her. The horse appeared behind him, and it stomped the ground producing a thunderous boom as the boy reached toward her. She didn't know why but she closed her eyes then, attempting to brace herself for death. When it didn't come, she knew something was up. Were the storm-beasts toying with her? Twill opened her eyes and saw a man in front of her, fending the creatures off with blows from a flaming stick. Steam swirled around her and with every whack the man delivered, the beasts sizzled, doing their best to try and drown the flames. It wasn't working. Twill slid to the ground and started to crawl away, but froze when she saw the man wasn't a man at all. He was only half so. From the waist down he had the legs of a goat. She hoped it was the lighting and she wasn't going crazy. Above her head the man and creatures fought wildly rain little sparks flying everywhere. Twill winced as a spark hit her arm. Suddenly the boy breathed out a cold wind, swirling the flames back into the man's face. Sweat formed on his brow as he tried to fight the wind, holding it the stick as far as he could. Twill knew she had to do something and she looked around. There. The book made a satisfying thunk as it hit rain-boy's head. He looked over at her for half a second, but that half-second was all the man needed to gain the upper hand. In a single stroke, he drove his flaming stick through the boys head, steam swirling as the rain started to dry out. As soon as rain-boy was down for the count, the man turned to the horse. It whinnied in fear and turned tail, dashing for the gaping hole in the wall and disappearing into the night. The man started to give chase, but remembered her and turned around to stare down at her. He offered her a hand and helped her up._

_ "Well, then, young demigod. What is your name? "He asked._

_ "D-Demigod? What do you mean?"_

_ "Well, ye must be a demigod for those storm-spirits to have tried so hard to kill ye. Aye, they usually avoid mortals, or at least try to anyway."_

_ "I'm sorry. I-I have no idea what you're talking about."_

_ "How old are ye lass?_

_ "Fifteen."_

_ "You're a wee bit old to be just discovering you're a demigod. Ah, but I'll let Chiron sort it all out. For now all ye need know is that my name is Phrixus."_

_ "I'm Twill. Twill Clavus." She replied, brushing a strand of wet brown hair behind her ear. "Who's Chiron?"_

_ "Old buddy of mine. He runs a camp a little ways away. He'll take care of ye."_

_ "A camp?"_

_ "Of sorts. Now get on my back and quit yapping. I'll get you to camp safe and sound lass." With some difficulty, Twill hopped onto the centaurs back and held tight as he galloped out of the library and away, past the sleeping town and into the woods. Eventually Twill fell asleep, being quite exhausted. When she awoke she was in a house. The Big House to be specific. A kid from Hermes showed her around and filled her in on being a demigod. She was claimed by Hephaestus at the campfire that night. It wasn't anything special, just a glowing red hammer over her head. A few grease- stained kids cheered and suddenly, Twill felt…at home. For the first time in her life. _

_**Yay! Twill has found a place to call home! Throughout the series I'll probably add more little flashbacks about Twill's past and such. Hope you guys enjoyed and PLEASE review! It would mean SO Much to me being new here and all. Chapter three might not come out for a while due to graduation and fieldtrips I have coming up, but I'll get it out there as soon as possible! ^_^ Remember to review and keep checking back for more updates! Hope to hear from you soon!**_


	3. Chapter 3

**Howdy! Sorry I haven't updated in a while but I've been battling writers block and I've also been a little wrapped up with graduation and such. But I'm ready to go so let's see what happens next with Twill! Remember to review!**

I was interrupted in my daydreams suddenly by a voice. Camp Half-Blood was a tiny dot down below and I was getting dizzy from the sudden height. I stepped away from the railing and turned to see Leo motioning to me. I walked over to him. Apparently I was going to start being an engineer right about now.

"Alright, I'm gonna show you the ropes and hope you catch on quick. Apparently the system is complicated? Don't know what she means but Annabeth insists it is."

"Okay…I guess." I didn't know how to reply to that, but my response was good enough because Leo nodded and started to lead me to the engine room. It was on the bottom of the ship and exactly how I had always imagined an engine room to look like. There were boilers for the showers and kitchen lined up against one wall with pipes running along the ceiling and disappearing into the walls. The other wall was devoted to an unruly mess of machines, wires, buttons, and remotes. My eyes widened and I barely restrained myself from begging to go back to camp. Luckily, we didn't head to that wall. Instead, Leo led me to the back of the room and past a few generators lined up in the middle of the walkway. There was a curved window that looked down towards the ground and also straight ahead where we could see a side of the ship. Beneath the window was a control panel that didn't looked nearly as complicated as the other one I'd seen. Believe me it was still cluttered and messy looking, just not so bad. We walked up to it and Leo hit a few buttons that sent the screen to a sort of main menu. But instead of just being a flat surface, a hologram popped up out of the control panel. Leo reached up and hit another couple of buttons on the hologram, his hand not passing through it like I'd expected. I stood there open-mouthed while Leo continued to fiddle away on it. I basically considered him the technological god and I half-expected him to start glowing because Olympus had gotten a thirteenth major god. Luckily I regained composure right before Leo looked over at me.

"Alright, what I'm going to do is set it up to its most basic setting, put it at the control menu and let you take over. All I want you to do is open up the windows in the lounge slowly and halfway. Are you ready?" he said. I just nodded, dry-mouthed and a little bit overwhelmed. But, after a few moments of tampering with the screen-like hologram, he gripped a corner of the hologram and slid it over to me. I took a deep breath and looked down at it. There were three major categories I could choose from; Engineering, Basic, and Utilities. I knew it wouldn't be engineering and probably not utilities either so I pressed Basic. It was odd, touching the holo-panel (I guess you could call it that) like touching a piece of paper that was being held up in midair; If you pressed too hard the screen rippled and moved away, but if you pressed too softly, It wouldn't register that you did anything. After I touched the screen a third time I finally got it to register without malfunctioning and it took me to another set of categories, this time a little bit more diverse. It reminded me of one of those dichotomous keys the science teacher always made us do. This time I could choose from any of the rooms on the ship. Easy peasy. I hit Lounge and managed to make it work the first time. This time it was between Lights, Comfort, Screens, or Service. I hesitated for a moment, stuck between Lights and Service. I ended up choosing lights and was rewarded with the choices of Windows or Electric. I chose Windows quickly and got a surprise. Instead of another choice I got a hologram that popped out of the panel, in a sort of 3-D way. It was a pull lever. At the top it was marked with a C while at the bottom it was marked with an O. It was pushed all the way to the top. I thought for a second, sneaking a glance over at Leo. He was staring at the panel expectantly, waiting for me to do something. I put my hand out a little nervously and grasped the lever. The image wavered, but it held and I began to pull down, trying to go slowly. Far off I heard a sound that was almost like a garage door opening. I continued to pull until the lever was balanced between the O and the C. Then I took my shaky, sweaty hand off of it and turned to Leo.

"Was that- Did it work?" I asked. He raised his eyebrows at me and smirked.

"What do you think? Of course it worked. Now, I can handle it from here. Tomorrow I'll make it a little bit more complicated. For now, go unpack or something." I breathed a sigh of relief and found my way out of the room, and up to my quarters. The cabin was large enough and was furnished with a bed, night-stand, wardrobe and desk. The walls were blue (one reason I had picked the room) and the floor was wood paneling. My suitcase was still sitting on the bed were I left it. I zipped it open and put away the clothes in the wardrobe, revealing all of my personal items underneath. I pulled out a sketch pad and a few books (I figured I had some sort of connection to the Apollo cabin because I always liked to draw) and stowed them in the night-stand. There was a quilt as well which I laid on the bed. The final items were tools and scrap metal for tinkering. I put those on the desk. However when I went to put the suitcase underneath the bed, I noticed that there was still some metal tucked away in a side pouch on the suitcase. I pulled it out, recognizing it immediately and sighing inwardly. I had meant to leave her with a friend back at camp, but apparently she had other ideas. I put the compressed chip of metal on the bed and pushed a button on the surface. It unfolded and after a few seconds a metallic fox pup stared up at me from the bed as I half-heartedly glared at it. Created with the same technology as Festus, Cad (named after the Cadmean Vixen of Greek mythology) had been a birthday present from my fellow Cabin Nine bunkmates. I couldn't talk to it but it usually made its feelings perfectly clear. It had been modeled after a real baby fox, personality and all, and was especially smart due to it being a machine. I glared at her a moment longer and finally gave in, petting her head and shoving the suitcase under the bed. I picked her up and sat down on the bed, looking around. I thought about the lesson earlier and wondered what the next day would be like. It couldn't be that much harder, could it? After resting a little more the silence became a little too deafening and I plopped Cad back onto the bed and stood up, stretching my legs.

"Stay, Cad," I told her, even though she had a habit of not listening. Then I slid out the door before she could run out. No doubt she would find some way to open it, but at least this would slow her down. I looked down the hall and started towards the lounge I'd found earlier. It was empty so I went up to the deck. There I saw pretty much everybody besides the Satyr from earlier. Leo was at the helm with a bunch of controls in his hands, Jason was on a platform, his hand on his sword, Annabeth was going over plans, and Piper was pacing around and muttering in charm speak something that made me really want to go talk to her. I figured we were pretty close to the roman camp now. After all we had been going at top speed ever since we set off about an hour ago. I went over to the railing opposite Jason and stared down. We were above the clouds and the land beneath us was barely visible. It hit me then. We were about to fly a warship into a potentially hostile camp. What had I signed up for? My knuckles were white on the railing and I wished I was back at camp, Cad curled up next to me, and I would wake up and find out that Percy had never gone missing and everything was normal. But it was too late to turn back. Along with the realization that this camp was probably dangerous, came the realization that I wasn't actually armed at the moment. I didn't actually want to hurt anybody, but if it came down to it I had to be able to defend myself. I felt a cold shiver down my spine and my hands clenched the rail tighter until I forced myself to let go. I stepped away and ran down the stairs back to my cabin. Cad slipped out and I had to chase her halfway down the hall before I caught her. There I grabbed my sword from my pile of tools on the desk. It was silvery and folded up quite nicely to the size of Playing card with a push of a button on its hilt. It had been delivered to me, my second year at camp during Christmas time. I slipped it into my back pocket and, after a moment of thought, folded up Cad as well, sticking her next to my sword. If something did go wrong I didn't want to lose her and she was useful in battles. More than once we had won Capture the Flag due to her sharp senses and tricks. I looked around the cabin once more and was headed up the stairs when I heard it.

The Romans had sounded their horns.

**Phew! Finally finished with Chapter Three. I'm so sorry I took me so long to update so I made this chapter especially long. I hope you guys like it. I'm afraid a lot of it might be fluff and it would really mean a lot to me if you reviewed, and pointed out any mistakes, commented on the quality, or gave me some ideas. I had to do a lot of research for this chapter so it would be accurate, and I actually went and read the first chapter of "Mark of Athena" again. If any of you want to know more about The Cadmean Vixen, here is a link to a Wikipedia page- wiki/Teumessian_fox Please, PLEASE, review! It would mean so much to me. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed and I will get started on Chapter Four right away. Byee!**


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